A Day in the Life of Dart Harbour Authority

River Staff

A Day in the Life of Dart Harbour Authority

Dart Harbour senior administrator Penny Johns outlines a typical day in the life the Harbour Authority during the summer.

“It’s tough to outline a ‘typical’ day for the harbour authority because there’s no such thing! An early arriving ship can mean the river teams are in extra early or a late one can mean they are out extra late but what follows is as typical as it gets!

7.30am: River Watches start. The men on river watches work three days on, three days off throughout the summer, and the watches run from 7.30am to 7.00pm. There is also a crew which works at the Hoodown workshop on the Kingswear side of the river, maintaining Dart Harbour’s legion of buoys, pontoons, boats, cleats and other facilities.

The river crews which are split into an upriver and down river watch, have to make sure everyone tying up to visitors’ moorings pay, check that no boats break the harbour’s strict speed limits and ensure that all the buoys and other assets are in tip top condition. They must keep the navigation channel clear and maintain all the lights

Down river, the patrols check all the visitor pontoons for new visitors, so that everyone is paying their harbour dues.

During regatta there is huge demand for moorings, so the staff work incredibly hard to accommodate everyone. So many people want to come in and moor that it is an extremely difficult job to keep everyone happy!

If there is a large ship coming in, then many of the river staff will be taken off other duties so they can get moorings ready for them, depending on the size of vessel. It’s a major operation to take up and put down the admiralty buoys and a team of three can be used, along with Hercules the river crane, to bring them up and place them down.

The crews also help if a boat needs a tow, some advice or maybe even a few directions.

8am: The yacht taxi starts running – there are three shifts on in the summer and it will run from 8am to 11pm. The harbour has two taxis, one runs continually, and the second runs during regatta and also at other peak times. They operate on two zones; an inner and an outer. The first running between the two ferries, the other downriver to Warfleet and upriver to Noss.

9am: The Dart Harbour Office opens – The first duty is to prepare the weather report, with a five day forecast, both for shipping and inshore. A sailing forecast for Plymouth, Portland, the Scilly Isles and the Channel Islands is included. We put in eight days of Synoptic Charts - the weather patterns you see on the Weather forecast on TV with high and low pressure fronts - for the North Atlantic. This report also includes tide times.

That takes about half an hour to bring together and then print off – but it’s absolutely worth it for the sailors in the harbour. We are a safe haven, so often there will be sailors waiting for the report who were forced in by bad weather, or hoping to move along the coast – the reports we bring together are vital for them to plan ahead.

However, we draw the line at being held responsible for the weather – it’s nothing to do with us!

From then on we all have our admin jobs to do and we all have to answer the phones which frankly never stop ringing!

We have lots of calls about the ships that come in, especially if there is a big ship moored – what it is, where it’s come from, where it was built, who it is owned by, we have to field all of them.

There are also many calls and visitors to the office from potential and current berth holders. There is a waiting list of around ten-years for some of the deep water moorings for the larger boats, so often people are phoning to find out where they are on the list, or perhaps to put their name down on it – which is tricky when you tell them how long they might have to wait!

We also handle mail and parcels arriving for the sailors on the river and for those who live onboard their boats. We issue fuel transfer permits to vessels wanting to take on more than 1000 litres of fuel from tankers and also dive permits for either commercial or leisure diving operations. These permits are vitally important to prevent something going wrong and a fuel spill occurring in our beautiful river.

In the run-up to regatta we are also busy preparing the notices which need to go out to boat owners for large scale events when the river needs to be cleared. Bizarrely the office is relatively quiet during regatta – all the action is taking place on the water!

We also deal with facilitating maritime (on-water) events, issue Local Notices for Mariners for marine based activities and other general information for river users. We arrange berthing for yacht club rallies and clubs, enforcing all the byelaws to ensure the river is safe for all river users, investigate incidents on the river, work with shipping agents and security companies for the arrival of large ships, manage pilotage operations to ensure that the large ships are safely manoeuvred into the river and deal with environmental issues, including emergency response action plan for oil spills etc.

We are open seven days a week 9-5 Monday to Friday and 10am to 4pm on Saturday and Sundays.

Midday: between now and 2pm the river patrols come in to complete their paperwork and bring in the money they have taken, before heading out on patrol again.

Throughout the afternoon the work continues, changing day to day. We are involved in so many organisations and events that often we hold meetings here or members are popping in to get details.

We even have contact with locals schools and youth organisations to promote our very successful Young Champion Award scheme.

5pm: The office closes most days, but the work continues out on the river.

7pm: the river watches come to an end and hand over to seasonal part time river officers who carry on patrolling the river and assist yachts entering the harbour right up until 11pm.